Hugh Fontaine

Hugh ran down the stone steps. Two women were struggling their way up with a third person between them. Under any other circumstance, he would have stopped to help, but he hadn’t seen Julianne. Dread twisted in his gut. Behind the women, through the open door, he saw her. She looked dazed and weak, standing over the big man on the floor.

A sense of protection roared through Hugh as her head turned slowly his way. Dust and dirt covered her face and clothes. It nearly broke him to see tracks of muddy tears trailing down her dusty cheeks. Hugh pulled her into his arms and felt her sob against his chest.

“I’ve got you.” And I am never letting you go. His hand stroked the back of her head. “It’s over.” His heart burst with relief as her face lifted to his. He held her for a long moment.

Julianne’s thin voice asked, “Is he…dead?”

Hugh turned his head momentarily toward the prone man below them.

“I…I choked him.” She drew a ragged breath. “I just wanted him to faint.”

“It’s all right,” Hugh murmured in her ear.

“Why did he do this?” Julianne’s forehead pressed into Hugh’s chest. Her right arm held his waist tightly. Between sobs she said, “I just wanted to get away…but I…I killed him.”

“Shh. You’re safe now.” He rocked back and forth with her. “I’ll check.” He didn’t think he really needed to. He was sure the man had been served simple justice without a trial.

Hugh sat Julianne on the stairs outside the door, and then took the hardest step in his life away from her. He walked back into the dank room. In his heart, he was satisfied that Julianne had acted in self-defense—he was proud of her. The evil this man had done had no possible excuse in Hugh’s book.

Hugh squatted and rolled the man over, revealing a knife deep between his ribs. A darkened puddle of black mud was below Dougal, and red blood clung to the knife. Now, High was sure Dougal had been talking with Archie about the women.

Behind him, Julianne gasped. Hugh stepped between her and the dead man to block her view as he returned to her. “You didn’t do this.” He slipped one arm across her back and the other behind her knees, cradling her, and left the cellar.

Julianne curled against his chest and whimpered, “That’s my knife. My knife killed him.” Her right hand held her left arm close to her side.

She’s hurt.

“Choices are powerful things. He killed himself.” Hugh kissed the top of Julianne’s head.

When he came out from behind the Nugget Saloon, he saw the full extent of the town’s fire. He had to get her to safety. Every building on the west side of Main Street up to the restaurant was on fire, and smoke filled the sky. It wouldn’t be long before Edwin’s place, the Nugget, and the root cellar would succumb. So far, the east side had been spared, as long as the wind didn’t change. The best way out seemed to be south, toward the railroad station. If it engulfed the whole town, they could drive their wagons to South Fork.

Mr. Anders and two of his barkeepers loaded a black metal safe and a few wooden boxes in a wagon, then hopped aboard and raced south. On the street ahead of Hugh, the two reverends stood beside a wagon filled with the women who’d left the cellar. Millie and Mrs. Parker were in the back with them, whispering comforting words and covering the women with quilts.

At that moment, Little Archie exited the restaurant, yelling for his uncle to wait for him.

Hugh shouted at the reverends, “They set black powder. Get your wagon out of here.”

Instead of running away, Mrs. Parker clambered down from where she had been sitting on the bench and followed Reverend Parker as he ran toward Julianne. Callum jumped aboard his wagon and took off toward the station.

Hugh saw Little Archie race from the building. Hugh was a handful of steps away from the buckboard when an explosion ripped open the top of the restaurant, blew out most of the front wall, and sent fiery debris vaulting into the air. The concussion blew past Hugh as a plank from the storefront slammed into his back, throwing him to the ground with Julianne in his arms. He was just able to twist enough not to land on her.

As he rolled to his back, Hugh felt torn. Should he help Julianne get to the wagon, or chase her abductor?

Julianne’s father appeared at their side. “I’ve got her. Go!” he yelled to Hugh.

“Take my wagon! Follow Reverend Bing,” Hugh called back. He scrambled to his feet at the same time Archibald did. With a burst of speed, Hugh caught him, tackling him to the dirt and wrestling him to his stomach. Archie squirmed like the weasel he was, trying to get away. Hugh hauled Grady back to his feet while twisting his arm behind his back and crooking his arm around the man’s neck.

“Let go of me. You can’t prove anything.” Archie’s voice was smug. “My uncle owns this town. And he bought the sheriff too.”

Hugh cranked up the pressure on Little Archie’s arm and jerked the smaller man toward the road and the jail. Although Hugh wanted to choke the life out of the vermin, he was going to make sure every person in Colorado knew Archibald Grady as a yellow-bellied, low-life vulture who preyed on women. He wanted a very public trial and hanging.

Reverend Parker stood in their way. “Who’s this?”

Hugh caught his breath. It had taken everything inside him to restrain the man instead of whipping the life out of the villain, but his answer pushed through his teeth with the barely contained rage he felt. “He arranged the abductions.”

Without a word, Reverend Parker’s fist flew straight to Grady’s jaw, and he slumped from Hugh’s grasp, falling to the gravel road. Without pause, the reverend grabbed one of the man’s legs and dragged him toward the jail.

Hugh glanced back toward the Nugget Saloon. Smoke and fire filled all the windows.

Death ambled from the back of the building, his own form as black and smoky as the rising air. He towed a transparent Dougal by his hair—the knife, still imbedded in his chest. Death paused, picked up the huge man, and threw Dougal head-first into and through the earth in front of him. Seemed there wasn’t much question about which way that man was going. Death tipped his hat toward Hugh, wiped his hands down his trousers as if to rid himself of the filth the man’s soul had left, and disappeared.